Dev Diary #7 - Progress Update June & Whats Next

  Howdy Folks, back with yet another public post, but as we wan't to establish these monthly summaries, it wouldn't be the best start to have too much delay on the second issue already ;D 

Don't worry, we'll go back to posting more new content right after ;)

The month of June was especially successful on the coding side and we (first of all me) are somewhat focussed on getting to a certain milestone right now - which is the XXX Mode prototype or the BETA version of it for starters - so some other aspects that I'm involved in are not going aquite as fast right now. Nevertheless we had a lot of content and great art from Cucu to share: 

Content Updates

 - We posted the first sticker of Nikki the circus artist showing her great flexibility as well as her first XXX Artwork of her doing a DP with the help of one her juggling clubs – she's pretty daring, you know ;) 

- Then I finally got to finish and share a new XXX animation - this time for the Angel Anaela - using a new software that took forever to get to work with the game but let's us use up to 60 fps for way smoother animations instead of the 18 we had before. At the same time it's even less data since the animations are rendered in real-time now! Oh, and it allows to blend between the motions smoothly, too! 

- With a third artwork finished, Mayu's XXX scenes are now complete... BUT Cucu is gonna overhaul the first one, because that was also the first artwork she ever did for Sexy Exile and we feel that it doesn't live up to the style and quality she established in the meantime. We also posted a cumshot version of Mayu's Blowjob scene as well as a second sticker. Very soon, one more of these will be posted before the qualifying patrons will be sent Mayu's then complete artwork. 

- We received the first voice-acting tracks ever! They will be used for Anaela, thus the prototype. Of course we showed off a snippet of that in a public Dev Diary (#5) post along with some more details about sound and animations. 

- An individual soundtrack for our XXX Mode is almost finished, too and an excerpt of it is included in a video we posted with public Dev Diary #6, which also shows how the animations react to the gameplay now 

Coding updates

- I developed a few routines to generate the levels through reading images pixel by pixel. This way, we can visually design levels in any graphics software which is pretty straight-forward to do. There is more in-depth information about that as well as some early gameplay footage in the public Dev Diary #3 

- As stated above, the new animations we're implemented in a tedious process of troubleshooting together with the animation software's developer and I have since managed to sync them and have them react to the gameplay, which can be seen in the public Dev Diary #6 

- Finished the HUD Elements (Pressure Bar and Heart Counter + Circular Progress Bar) and underlying score and pressure mechanisms 

- Designed a full first level 

- Did all kinds of gameplay additions, optimizations and adjustments, started balancing, added visual feedback and effects to lots of things, gave the basic collectibles proper behaviour and so on. Doesn't read like much but there's several hundred lines of code in these little things alone...phew! 

- Implemented Turbo Mode (90% done) which will kick in if you don't manage to collect enough hearts during the regular level. Turbo Mode is obviously faster, therefore harder and will randomly spawn hearts you missed before, throw in some extra mines and let's the pressure bar rise faster in a sort of sudden-death manner. 

So what's next? ALPHA? 

Yes.
Basically all that's left to do before our higher tier patrons can test the first level in some kind of an ALPHA state are a proper beginning and endings for the level, both audio-visually (text inserts and sounds) and coding-wise as well as some more testing and balancing. 

Doesn't sound like much, right? Well, it isn't really and we hope to arrive there within the next two weeks.   

So as this will be the very first "release" ever, we plan to do it like this:   Everyone of our patrons that has BETA access will get access to this ALPHA instead, this time. During and right after that we will implement the second stage, Intro etc. to finish up the prototype for which we will then start a BETA phase with ALL our patrons of 3$ or more, so everyone gets rewarded for the early support! We can't wait! =) 

As always, we're happy to answer any questions and any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Have a good one!
Zanzo & Cucu - Peachaboo